NEWTON turned a sharp and startled glance upon the Brain.
“And remember”, Simon added, “if you do not return none of us can go after you.”
The stone vault was silent then. High above through the triple windows a gleam of light came dancing in, cruel and bright as a golden spear. Vulcan had turned her face sunward and the Beam was come again.
Newton said softly, “I’ll come back. I promise you. Now come here and study these controls.”
In somber surrender Simon Wright said, “Your eagerness for the unknown was bound to bring disaster some time. I think this may be the time.”
But he came to the controls. These were simple and the careful translation of the inscriptions made their operation quite clear. They found that Carlin had adjusted them with great delicacy.
He had meant to return. Yet he had not returned. Why not? Newton could not believe that a landslide of soil could be barrier to a shape of living energy that could penetrate the depths of the Sun.
Why then had Carlin not come back? What was there out in the blazing thundering fury of that Sun-world that held and trapped those who went there? Captain Future remembered the inscriptions above the niches and the somber words of Simon Wright and shuddered, somewhere deep within him.
Almost in that moment he wavered. But over his head the light of the Beam burned and brightened and he could not have stopped then, even if he had so wished.
“You understand now?” he asked his comrades. “The machines draw their power from the magnetic field of Vulcan itself, which is tremendous — cutting as it does across the magnetic field of the Sun. So there is a never-failing power source. The controls are properly set. Your job will be to see that they aren’t touched.”